Thursday, July 7, 2016

The Getty Center (and thoughts)


We went to the Getty Center (my first time!) a few weeks ago, here's a video about it. I've been experimenting much more with making work through a video format these days. It's been a different, yet liberating experience apart from working on print based work as well as photo.

I'm not sure how to explain this feeling I've been having lately, but I keep seeming to identify it with guilt, and I'm guessing it's stemming from not really shooting as much photographs lately? I definitely haven't lost my passion for documenting but have been feeling a lack of motivation. It strangely makes me feel quite uncomfortable talking about this subject, perhaps because I identified myself so much as a photographer growing up and now I'm kind of all over the place and dipping my toes in different mediums, I feel like I can't (and in a way, don't want to) label myself to one title. I never wanted to get to a point in my life where taking photographs has become a chore, but unfortunately I've been hit with that feeling. I value, appreciate, and of course love documentation, but what has been keeping me away from shooting has definitely been my own self. I know this feeling won't last long, but I've just been in a bit of a dry spell.
For the longest time I was so hung up on finding my style and what I can do to set myself apart from the rest of this world's photographers and designers. After months of struggling with my thoughts and feeling discouraged I realized it's important to just keep looking straight and keep creating. Specifically in design, I realized restricting myself to one style is more harmful to me than beneficial for my "brand", especially as a learning student. It stopped me from simple things like trying new type faces, compositions, and of course colors which resulted in a big pause in my improvement. Of course having your personal touch in all your work that viewers can recognize is so powerful and rewarding, but at this time in my life I realized what's important for myself is to explore, and through that I'll learn and perhaps one day find a trait that can be repeated in all of my work, like designer Sister Corita Kent, or maybe not, maybe all of my work will look extravagantly different like the works from Emigre. There's so much to learn, and there's never a finish line in the world of design, which both frightens and exhilarates me. Lots more to say but I'll stop here.

I'm excited to keep creating. I'm excited to mess up. I'm excited to improve.
I've recently complied some of my design work on a messy Tumblr to keep track of my completed work, I think once I feel okay with making my progress public I'll share that link.

We'll see.

4 comments:

  1. :) Good to hear from you Janis. Keep up the good work <3 hwaiting!!

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  2. I enjoyed this video so much. So natural, calm, warm, and full of love! What a coincidence, I was just googling about getty and you had a post about it too! <3

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    1. Hi~~ Thanks so much.. watching it again made me miss the freedom of summer LOL You should take a visit soon!

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